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A mug’s game: Cheltenham, day 2

March 18, 2010 in Columns, Horses, Sport | Comments

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In Papillon, the epic 1973 film about a pair of criminals sent to French Guiana for a life of hard labour, one of the many mistakes Steve McQueen’s captors make is to give him a butterfly net. When Dustin Hoffman’s near-sighted Dega catches a rare and beautiful blue butterfly, McQueen bargains with a visiting insect dealer for a passage off their tropical island prison.

Yesterday, the sports editor took the pickaxe from my hand, pressed a net into my sweaty, leathery palm, and told me to go catch butterflies at Cheltenham.

Ha! Little did he know that I was to turn his miserly €20 budget into a route off this inky hell.

So to the off. Crowd-sourcing is the newest trend in new journalism – the theory is that (lazy) journalists outsource tasks to a group of people through an “open call” asking for contributions. Sounds good to me.

I text everyone in my phone book from ‘Alan mechanic’ to ‘Zico’s Pizza’ looking for a tip as well as roaring into the echo chamber that is Twitter.

And after spreading yesterday’s newspaper across the kitchen table and circling any potential winners in red biro, like JR Hartley looking for his out-of-print fly-fishing books in that classic Yellow Pages TV advert of yesteryear, I went for Peddlars Cross.

In these straitened times, our budget, like everything else has been reeled in from last year’s €50 to 20. So a modest €2 flutter on the Jason Maguire jockeyed horse in the Neptune Investment Novices Hurdle was enough to wet my beak. Amazingly, he came in and the off-the-shelf misery-dripping intro I usually use was thrown over my shoulder, with a loud guffaw, into the waste paper basket.

My brother’s namesake Davy Russell was next up for me on Weapons Amnesty at 2.40. If I’d known he was owned by budget airline boss Michael O’Leary, I might have checked my slip for extra charges and brought my own bottled water with me. But nevertheless he romped (as they only seem to say in tabloids and horse racing) to victory. Another Ryanair arrival on time, despite a bumpy enough ride. That’s €21 in winnings to add to the €16 earlier. Not quite enough in the kitty yet to perform a well-rehearsed resignation speech on the sports desk, but we’re going in the right direction.

These race meetings are a time when peasant is cheek by jowl with royalty in the queue for the portaloos behind the champagne tent. So then to the regal sounding Kalahari King. A €1.50 each way stake brought in the princely sum of €3.19. Why bother? But then came the redemption for every reader and our own Ruby on Sanctuaire. A still conservative €2.50 each way topped up a good day’s work as I grabbed the chips off the table, tipping my head back and laughing.

However, if you know your 1970s film history, you’ll know Papillon and his accomplice are double crossed by the butterfly dealer. Papillon’s only reward for hard work and ingenuity is betrayal and disappointment.

So I too expected the final fence of the day – the Weatherbys Champion Bumper at 5.15 – to see my final pick failing to place. But as Henri ‘Papillon’ Charriere showed: try, try again. We tried again with Ruby on Al Ferof. He was beaten to second, but another €9 saw us top out the day on €46.51.

Uke can’t be serious: Christy serenades the rugby team

March 12, 2010 in Columns, Music, Rugby, Sport | Comments

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Okay, let me make a confession.

I nurse a clandestine habit that has driven me to the coldest and darkest corners of society.

When the house is finally still at night-time, I surreptitiously boot up the computer and, after checking over both shoulders, click into online forums to communicate with like-minded enthusiasts.

I visit specialist shops in the worst parts of town where the attendant nods discreetly as I slip into a familiar back room which holds the more unusual publications.

Yes, I can admit it now – I play the ukulele.

My quaint enthusiasm to what you might think of as a mere toy more than a musical instrument, a comical four-stringed ‘miniature guitar’ drives men like me to huddle together in cyber communities, exchanging the chords for the latest Vampire Weekend single or showing off a blue-grass strumming technique.

It’s a lonely life.

As Billy Connolly once said of the banjo, you never overhear a lusty-eyed woman in a bar lean into a friend and whisper: “See that guy with the banjo? He’s coming home with me tonight.” Rarely too, when someone asks, “Wow, whose car is that!?” is the answer: “Oh the Bugatti? That’s the banjo player’s.”

It’s not a dissimilar tale for the uke.

“Gwat has dish to glooo wick sporth!? I hear you splutter impatiently, dear reader, as bits of milky cornflakes speckle the breakfast bar.

Well, like a rare wild truffle or senior All-Ireland medals in the county of Mayo, us ukuleleists are thin on the ground. Therefore, I’m compelled to, and I’m choosing my words carefully here, jam online – using the free video-call software, Skype – with a greying middle-aged man who lives in a charming wood cabin on the Pacific coast of Oregon.

I thought of my pal (who’ll remain nameless because a. I don’t know if his wife knows he plays ukulele with a red-raw Irish fella on the internet while she’s out at work and b. If he Googles himself he’ll get an awful shock to be in the Examiner) earlier this week when Irish rugby’s two maestros Paul O’Connell and Brian O’Driscoll – presumably Paulie has forgiven his skipper for tripping him with his head in Twickenham – both tweeted about a special treat they enjoyed in camp.

Legendary baladeer Christy Moore offered the squad a private performance in their Dublin hotel on Monday night. Drico even revealed that he was allowed ‘to murder’ City of Chicago. There’s better men crashed on the rocks of that that tricky second verse, BOD.

Anyway the reason I bring it up is because the only Irish artist my friend in Portland ever name checked during our scratchy video calls was Christy. A man who, he appreciated, has built a career on great tunes, an unapologetic political awareness and sweat – plenty of sweat.

You get the feeling actually, given his earthy and creative credentials that Christy would ordinarily, like a lot of us, have a lot of sympathy for the body-swerving, coke-smudged face of Welsh rugby. But probably not tomorrow.

Michael Moynihan of this parish conducted a great interview with Jamie Heaslip last week that was more Smash Hits than Sports Illustrated with the flanker revealing a gra for the likes of Mumford and Sons, Florence and the Machine and my main dude Dizzee Rascal. All right up my street I must say.

But what Heaslip did not mention is that he ‘put his hand up’ and ‘backed himself’ as the oval ball fraternity insist they do and asked the bould Christy to give us a few bars of Dizzee’s modern classic ‘Bonkers’ after he finished up the Lakes Of Ponchartrain.

We can now reveal here that rather than singing that or indeed Dizzee’s breakthrough track ‘Dance Wiv Me’, Christy penned a special song for the rugby lads. Below it is reproduced, in part.

[Heart stopping guitar intro that goes on a bit as he, introduces the song with a story about a wild horse on the Curragh, the 1993 Rose of Tralee and David Campese]

Verse 1

“Oh, Jedward are on the Sky box pulling out the stops,

Joe Duffy’s on a mission, closing down the head shops

there’s a fella from Offaly in charge in Washington,

but Deccie can’t decide between O’Gara and Sexton”

Verse 2

“Now, the Celtic Tiger’s been and gone, it must have been a dream,

Bertie’s on a book tour, he was last seen down in Sneem,

Joxer packed the van for Jo’Burg, he fancied a safari

But Henry stuck the hand out in Paris, and called him a taxi

Yeooow! [Tommy Bowe can’t help but grab the mic]

Chorus

Singing, oooh Lansdowne Rd, Lansdowne, Lansdowne, Lansdowne, Lansdowne Rd

Oooh Lansdowne, Lansdowne, Lansdowne, Lansdowne, Lansdowne Rd

Don’t forget your shovel if you want to built the Aviva,

Croker’s closed again, so you better get your 10-year corproate ticket, I’m tellin’ ya

Oooh Lansdowne, Lansdowne, Lansdowne, Lansdowne, Lansdowne Rd… ”

It probably needs a bit more uke, Christy. But it’s as good as Ireland’s Call already.

Contact adrian.russell@examiner.ie Twitter: @adrianrussell

This column first appeared in this morning’s printed Irish Examiner edition.

Nice surprise

March 11, 2010 in Football, Sport | Comments

Heineken İtaly Activation from Kreatif360 on Vimeo.

I don’t usually post advertising, but this is an unbelievable effort from Heineken in Italy.

(Thanks to Stephen O’Leary of O’Leary Analytics)

Weeshie meets Beyonce

March 8, 2010 in GAA, Music, Sport | Comments

Weeshie Fogarty is a Radio Kerry DJ and Kingdom legend. Recently, despite the obvious links between Rockafella, Jay-Z and Austin Stacks, Weeshie had some difficulty pronouncing Mrs Jigga’s name after he discovered his sound engineer had gone to Dublin for a gig.

DJ Mek, a man who once stood idly by as I was man-handled by erstwhile hero Ian Brown, has offered us a superb mix of Weeshie’s confused on-air inquiries and a Beyonce track here.

UPDATE: Apparently, as usual, I’m late to the party; my old pal Ciaran Murphy and the Off the Ball Lads were the first to bring this to the country’s attention.

There are still reasons to love League of Ireland

March 5, 2010 in Football, Sport | Comments

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The Sports Illustrated writer Joe Posnanski recently recounted a favourite quote he prodded like loose change from an interview subject.
Louis ‘Red’ Klotz, has the most unenviable jobs in sport; coaching the team that faces the famous Harlem Globetrotters every week.

The Washington Generals (also often known as the New York Nationals) are the journeymen stooges who, game after game, season after season, decade after decade are duped by the same flashy crossover and follow the ball-on-the-string trick like a loyal but obtuse dog teased with a biscuit treat.

In the 58 years since he’s taken charge, Klotz’s teams have beaten the Globetrotters just twice. Amazingly, they’ve lost — wait for it — over 13,000 times.

But Red yet still shelters an un-dimming flicker of hope. This past winter the Globetrotters, a well-oiled organisation more adept at slick marketing and cheap publicity stunts than the ad men of Madison Avenue, announced they’d face the Generals again. But this time on ice.

If Klotz was perplexed at this curious arrangement or fearful for the safety of his boys, he didn’t let on. In fact, he made a foolhardy statement that encapsulates his entire outlook: “We excel on ice”.

Yes, that’s right. After decades playing the pantomime villains and losing every game bar a couple, he thinks ice (ice!) will suit the Generals’ playing style.

With unflinching optimism like that, he must support Sligo Rovers. Or Shels. Or be a season ticket holder at Dalyer. Or any League of Ireland club.

Tonight the Airtricity League kicks off after a 12-round close-season that left even Roddy ‘Queensbury Rules’ Collins punch-drunk. While its players went, scandalously, unpaid, Cork City endured a court-room drama so protracted and convoluted I thought I’d put the Boston Legal DVD back in the Lost box-set. The once great Derry City also dropped a division in a winter of discontent.

But tonight, after all the off-field attrition — though the battle scars are admittedly yet to heal — a football match will break out. And then another. And a few more. It’s perhaps an apposite time to reaffirm some of the many reasons why we love domestic football.

1. The quaint stadia, like the Carlisle Grounds. Bray Wanderers’ home is the only stadium that needed a Hollywood budget to bring it up to 1920s standards with Neil Jordan casting the charming, seaside ground as Croke Park in Michael Collins. The Dart spin is nicer than a Tube journey too.

2. We’re on the way, meet you in… Kennedy’s of Drumcondra; The Black Lion, Inchicore; The Horseshoe on the corner flag in Turner’s Cross Tavern; the Yellow House in Waterford. Wherever.

3. The Aviva Stadium. It looks like Optimus Prime’s foot spa but it’s ours now too. The Palindrome will likely host Bohs and Rovers’ Dublin derby in August. The RDS and elsewhere was grand in the interim but it’ll be good to be knocking about Lansdowne Road again for the big days.

4. Ryanair. You don’t have to pay Michael O’Leary to use the toilet on the way to Flancare Park. Though Longford is like a foreign country sometimes.

5. Jonny Logan. The Eurovision titan’s Hold Me Now was appropriated by Bohs fans after a particularly successful sing-song in a
Stockholm bar. You don’t hear that on English terraces.

6. Terraces! What am I saying? There aren’t any terraces in the EPL. If I wanted to sit in a comfortable seat with affluent middle aged men for an hour and a half I’d queue for a prostate exam in the GP’s waiting room.

7. Gary Lineker’s MOTD puns have ruined more of my Saturday nights than nightclub doormen.

8. Ball was there ref, the ball was there!

9. Neale Fenn’s first touch.

10. Walk away, player!

11. Gary Twigg. The Scottish striker has a haircut that’s heard around the world, but he’s the most natural scorer this side of Ashley Cole.

12. Ashley Cole

13. Friday night football. A pay-slip, a hair-cut and a pint before kick-off is, scientifically, the best start to any weekend, right?

14. Fans’ jokes when UCD visit: ‘Come on lads, these have bleedin’ school in the morning!’

15. Watching a midfielder steaming into a tackle before emerging from puddles of blood and gnawed bone with the ball, then turning to your pal and saying: “I used to have him in my pocket at U15s, ‘member?”

16. Mick Wallace’s Italian renaissance in Wexford. And his Youths side wear pink. Forza.

17. The asterisk; we usually boast more than any other league in the world.

18. Summer football — the sun shines but we excel on ice too.

Contact: adrian.russell@examiner.ie Twitter: @adrianrussell

Paul O’Connell kneeing Brian O’Driscoll in the head told through the medium of quotes from the Sopranos

March 4, 2010 in Rugby | Comments

“He Marvin Gayed his own nephew. The boss of the family.”
- Vito, (referring to Uncle Junior shooting Tony)

Melfi: “How’d that make you feel?”
Tony: “I wished it was me in there.”
Melfi: “Giving the beating or taking it?”

“There’s an old Italian saying: you fuck up once, you lose two teeth.”
- Tony

“You’re not gonna believe this. The guy killed 16 Czechoslovakians. He was an interior decorator.”
- Paulie

“All due respect, you got no fuckin’ idea what it’s like to be Number One. Every decision you make affects every facet of every other fuckin’ thing. It’s too much to deal with almost. And in the end you’re completely alone with it all.”
- Tony Soprano

Tony: I called you here, ’cause I got something to tell you. From now on, I’m gonna rely on you more and more, ’cause you’re the only one I can fully trust. Sil and Paulie… they’re old friends, but you’re one thing they’re not.
Christopher: What’s that, T?
Tony: Blood. You’re gonna lead this family into the 21st Century.
Christopher: Well, Tony, technically we’re already in the 21st Century…
[Tony looks at him, confused]
Christopher Moltisanti: Forget about it. You won’t regret this, T.

What fucking kind of human being am I, if my own mother wants me dead?
- Tony

There are no scraps in my scrapbook.
- Phil Leotardo

Big D on Tiger

March 1, 2010 in Sport, comedy | Comments

I went to see comedy’s own David O’Doherty in the Pavilion, here in Cork, on Saturday night.

Despite the former Perrier winner not remembering meeting my friends and I in 2004 in a field in Laois, it was a ridiculously enjoyable evening of laughter/muzak. Here’s his ode to the world’s greatest golfer/love-maker.

Paulie’s ‘Fear of God’ Speech vs ‘Life is a Rollercoaster’?

February 26, 2010 in Columns, Rugby, Sport | Comments

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To paraphrase one of Ronald Reagan’s White House advisors, speaking during a particularly stressful political stand-off, Eli Manning is an NFL quarter back so chilled out he sometimes endures sleepless afternoons.

Thanks to this calm demeanour, a chronscopic arm and a thimble of good fortune, he managed to drive the unfashionable New York Giants to an unlikely and famous Super Bowl victory in the 2007 season.

Pulling off vivid cartoon comic-book displays against monochrome backdrops in places like sub-zero Green Bay and Buffalo, the usually affable Manning insisted his young fiancee sit outside on the backside-numbing bleachers — rather than in the toasty corporate players’ box. For luck, you understand.

A slightly-embarrassed Manning explained when asked: “I’m not superstitious; I’m little-stitious”.

After the stinging defeat in Paris almost two weeks ago, tomorrow’s game in Twickenham against a resurgent England takes on — if this were possible for a showdown with the Auld Enemy — yet more consequence. And God knows our little-stitious rugby stars may need every bit of luck we can rub together, deep behind enemy lines.

Donncha O’Callaghan will carefully choose a new pair of stockings from a pile of fresh laundry the height of a medium-sized human child tonight. They’ll then be packed — by someone else — in a bag before the LateLate show. Ritual. Ritual. Ritual.

Other members of the playing staff will avoid the otherwise-popular David Wallace. Like the special breed of fainting goats that farmers in South America strategically keep with their more prized cattle, ‘Wally’ goes deathly quiet when a predator is on the horizon. He’s getting in the zone.

Meanwhile, back in the real world where the likes of you and I pack our own dirty socks into an old Roches Stores plastic bag before heading to the gym (just me?), fans are doing their bit for the ceremony of a big-game build-up and committing to tape their heartfelt team talks, which the squad view before kick-off.

One personal favourite features a ruddy-faced, unshaven gentleman under a woolly hat. This guy is the living embodiment of Yeats’s idealised Irishman depicted in The Fisherman. Fittingly, his speech is pure poetry.

In comparison, Al Pacino’s Game of Inches call-to-arms sounds like the automated voice on the Luas Red Line. A soaring lyric employing every rhetorical device seen in great political oration, by it’s climax I launch a wild Flannery-like swipe at the dog as if he’s a French winger, while the evocative music swells yet more.

(Incidentally, World Cup-winning England head coach Clive Woodward appeared on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs last Sunday. His music choices were, quite frankly, a thundering disgrace and should fill every Irish heart with optimism. Ronan Keating. Take That. 90s euro pop, which he explained evoked memories of Lawrence Dallaglio dancing on the team bus. Is this what they listen to in the home dressing room at Twickers while Paul O’Connell is throwing a rake of f***s into the lads? The Fear of God speech versus ‘Life is a Roller Coaster’? I know which foxhole, I’d prefer to be in tomorrow.)

Another clip shows a guy recalling the one occasion he witnessed his father crying; not at his wedding, not at his sister’s wedding, he says. But ‘when YOU Rog stuck that drop goal last year in Cardiff’. Your dad didn’t wait 60-odd years for his son to get married though, in fairness.

Eli Manning doesn’t have to ponder long on when the last time he saw his big brother cry.
The Indianapolis Colts’ Peyton is considered one of the best QBs ever to play the game, as Martin Johnson — a massive gridiron fan — will well know.

The Colts play with horseshoes — superstition’s touchstone — on their helmets but their luck had bolted by the time Peyton realised he had thrown away the Super Bowl last month against his hometown team of New Orleans.

With the blue-hot favourites driving in the final minutes for a game-tying touchdown, Peyton drilled a ball into the waiting arms of a Saint, who returned for a touchdown. Game over, Ger. And so the world’s greatest week big-game hype – with all its pomp and festooned ritual – came to a shuddering stop for one side.

Another set of Manning brothers — the ever-popular showband greats from Leeside — might have sung: let the heartaches begin. But let’s hope that’s an English tune tomorrow.

Email: adrian.russell@examiner.ie Twitter: @adrianrussell

This column first appeared in this morning’s Irish Examiner newspaper.

Almost done…

February 26, 2010 in Football, Rugby, Sport | Comments

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This was the view from my hotel room in Ballsbridge last weekend (after the Examiner v Indo game).

The new Aviva – or The Palindome as we’re calling it around here – looks like it’s gonna be an amazing new home for Irish football and rugby. And Michael Buble.

Table football with the Duffer

February 23, 2010 in Football, Sport | Comments

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Damien Duff will this morning unpack a suitcase in his London pad after leaving the Ireland camp, on the back of a 10-day stint away from home, to rejoin his new team-mates at Fulham.

If a week is a long time in football, as the truism rings, then a week-and-a-half on the road for an international double-header must feel like an eternity. I attempted to find out just what the Ballyboden native and his Irish roomies do for entertainment on trips stamped in green. And I decided to have this chat over a game of Tomy Super Cup Football.

For those wretches unfamiliar with the joy that is Tomy Soccer, as we knew it, I must explain that it was the pinnacle of sporting gaming in the 1980s. Produced by the Japanese toy giants (the now-faded box features a picture of Graeme Sharp in his Eveton blue jossling with Manchester United’s be-mulleted Arthur Albiston) it features two teams of tiny (and fragile) players who are moved up and down using levers, striking the ball with a flat paddle attached to their base.

If American presidents and supreme court judges face the crude litmnus test of the abortion debate, we children of the 80s divided all men into two groups; Tomy Soccer and Subbuteo.

Duff’s languid style and magician’s trunk of tricks betrays a flick-to-kick merchant, and he eyes suspiciously the battered cardboard box. I try to sound confident in challenging a talented, millonaire football star to a showdown, in an empty room, on a tiny, mechanised pitch. “Go on then,” he says, “Let’s have a game.” Read the rest of this entry »

You crazy for this one, Benny!

February 18, 2010 in Basketball, Sport | Comments

I sadly enough watched some of the anemic NBA All-Star game last weekend where one of the highlights of the celebrities’ court performances was the tigerish defending from hip-hop heavyweight Common.

I missed, however, the undisputed high-point, above, as it occured during a time-out and wasn’t televised.

In short, Benny the Bull – Chicago’s outgoing mascot – decided, quite reasonably, to perform the Single Ladies dance in front of Beyonce’s husband Jay-Z who was sitting court-side with his pal, P Diddy. They weren’t amused. Check it out from 40 seconds in.

Office wars

February 18, 2010 in Football, Sport | Comments

The Office - Series 2

The Irish Examiner and The Sunday Business Post newsrooms will at last unite for a game versus Independent Media this Saturday for the victims of Haiti’s recent earthquake.

It’s 2pm kick-off at the famous Tolka Park (after Bohs boss Pat Fenlon scuppered our plans for the more famous Dalymount Park earlier this week).

All welcome, details here.

UPDATE: Hold the back page: the game ended 2-2, with well over €4000 raised for Haven’s efforts in Haiti. The Examiner lot one the dance off however.

It’s a world record – but it’s still dodgeball

February 15, 2010 in Dodgeball, Sport | Comments

Some 1200 Canadian students put years of bullying, sporting dyslexia and social awkwardness behind them to unite this month and play the greatest game of dodgeball the human world has ever seen.

I couldn’t participate as I’m still serving a 12-month ban. See here.

Superbowl lessons for the GAA

February 9, 2010 in American Football, Sport | Comments

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The Saints capped a remarkable sporting journey, late on Sunday night, when underdog quarterback Drew Brees drove New Orleans to a stunning victory over the Indianapolis Colts. Among the crowd, we know, in the Sun Life Stadium in southern Miami were a couple of GAA stars; but what can the association learn from the NFL’s greatest show on earth?

1. The game on Sunday night is the last high-wire act in a week-long, multi-ring circus. For the days leading up to the tie former NFL stars make themselves available for workshops with kids; agents and administrators hold public debates and think-ins on the business of their sport while media have access to both teams for a three full days. Why not make the respective All-Ireland finals the culmination to a seven-day festival of the sport. It’s good business.

2. The famous half-time show was merely an exercise in Pete Townsend and Roger Daltry slowly dismantling their hard-earned rock’n'roll reputation with every creaky windmill manoeuvre and missed cue. If The Who offer themselves as half-time entertainment, let’s stick with the Artane Band

3. Peyton Manning is like a super quarter-back built in a lab by the US government using parts from slightly lesser QBs. In other words, just like Henry Shefflin. But not even Manning, with his obsessive-compulsive preparation, laser-like football mind and metronomic arm could lead the Colts to a win that was utterly expected. Fairytales happen, and the GAA world should not expect the Cats to go on winning forever. Right?

4. This year’s broadcast became the most watched event in American TV since the last episode of MASH with 116 million people tuning in. But as much as the on-field action and the half-time show, the commercials that punctuate the play receive as much attention. This year Hollywood starlet Megan Fox in a bath selling mobile phones as well as bitter rivals David Letterman and Jay Leno teaming up for a spot drew the most attention. Perhaps it’s time for the GAA and its sponsors to move away from its top stars hawking cattle feed and Wavin pipes.

5. The Saints won an unlikely victory a mere four years after Hurricane Katrina brought the jazz in New Orleans to a sudden stop. It’s clearly a silly parallel to attempt to draw but there are a collection counties who’ve endured a winter of discontent here – very often under an unwelcome veil of flood water. Like Brees and his inspirational Saints, they’ll be aiming to make hay when the sun shines once again.

First posted this morning to the Irish Examiner sportsblog.

A lament for Giants Stadium

February 4, 2010 in American Football, Football, Sport | Comments

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Old soldiers often visit now-green fields which long ago heard their last gunshot in order to retrace hard-made steps and remember battles fought.

If any gnarled and scarred Irish veterans of the memorable USA ‘94 campaign ever make the pilgrimage stateside, the site of their most famous victory will be utterly unrecognisable.

Earlier today, the demolition of Giants Stadium got started when a massive metal claw bit chunks from the cement helix. Dust clouds poured into the Meadowlands air as concrete and metal spokes poked through the shredded facade.

The stadium is merely 34-years-old and was, apparently, perfectly fit for purpose. But in that most American way, it was decided to topple it and start again. Renewal.

Just like the renowned and beautiful Yankee Stadium which went the same way recently and the Mets’ Shea Stadium, Giants Stadium was discarded like an old fashioned overcoat, before a new ‘facility’ is built right across the street.

There are, I think, few pleasures in life more exciting than a great sports ground in the pregnant hour or two before a much-anticipated event. Like that Heineken Cup TV advert which depicts a grizzled old groundsman recounting sepia-tinted days in the stadium while memories of solid tackles and spectacular tries visibly haunt the turf, sitting in a stadium and imagining the history that was played out in the little bit of real estate is a wonderful little experience.

Anyone whoever played the backroom in Cork’s Sir Henry’s could claim a shared performance heritage with Nirvana and Sonic Youth (and they did) and so too anyone who sat in a stadium seat that was witness to sporting soap opera, plugged into its rich history.

I wasn’t at the game in 1994 on that searingly hot June Saturday. And now, alas, I won’t be able to sit high in the bleachers in New Jersey and replay in my mind’s eye what I witnessed on the televison on the green canvas in front of me.

Due to the mutli-chrome spectrum of sports that was hosted in Meadowlands, I could have made my X on any blade of grass and hit upon a splinter of history.

As well as field goals kicked, Springsteen anthems bellowed and goals scored, labour leader Jimmy Hoffa was said to be buried in the foundations at one end zone (the Hoffa Zone, predictably).

This has since been disproved but it’s a good story, and it’s a great place to be dumped – if you were, in fact, killed by mobsters.

Here in Ireland? We’ll always remember Giants Stadium for Ray Houghton’s looping goal over a stranded Pagliuca that sent the country into absolute raptures. Paul McGrath once recounted a time when Villa played Inter in the UEFA Cup I think and the Italian goalkeeper grabbed him by the arm in the tunnel and sang, unblinkingly, ‘Oooh Aaah Paul McGrath’ at a bemused Black Pearl of Inchicore; a ditty learned that day in New Jersey.

If the demolition machinery creaked to a halt now, you might just hear 50,000 red-neck Irish people oohing and aaahing still.

Cross posted to the Irish Examiner sportsblog.

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